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Nine Hours of Free New Music at Northwestern Evanston Campus May 21

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University's School of Music and New Music Northwestern will present nine hours of new and experimental music during the 7th annual “New Music Marathon” from 1:30 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday, May 21. All performances are free and open to the public.

This year's “New Music Marathon” will spotlight the work of featured guest composer Alvin Lucier, a trailblazing force in psycho-acoustic music. These works include three rarely-performed Lucier works -- “Carbon Copies” (1989) for saxophone, piano, percussion and environmental recordings; “Panorama” (1993) for trombone and piano; and “Music for Cello with One or More Amplified Vases” (1992).

The Evanston campus events will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the Pick-Staiger Concert Hall lobby, 50 Arts Circle Drive, with Lucier's seminal “Music on a Long Thin Wire” (1977), a sound installation for audio oscillator and electronic monochord that will run throughout the day's events.

From 2 to 5 p.m. two concerts of multi-channel electro-acoustic music and a concert of improvised music will be held in John J. Louis Hall (Studio Building), 1877 Campus Drive.

The marathon will resume at 6 p.m. at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and concludes at 10:30 p.m.

The music of other represented composers include John Adams, inaugural winner of Northwestern's 2004 Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition, as well as Augusta Read Thomas, Jason Eckardt, Arvo Pärt, Stefano Gervasoni, Paul Koonce, Paulina Sundin, Steven Takasugi and several young Chicago area composers.

Performers will include Chicago pianist Amy Dissanayake, ensemble dal niente, soprano Tony Arnold, members of International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Fine Arts Music Society and several student musicians from Northwestern's School of Music.

A schedule of the May 21 free concerts follows:

Pick-Staiger Concert Hall lobby:

1:30 to 10:30 p.m. Continuous performance of Lucier's “Music on a Long Thin Wire.”

Louis Hall (TV Studio):

2 to 3:15 p.m. Electro-acoustic Music Program I will feature Carlo Forlivesi's “Requiem, part I Komm,” John Young's “Allting Runt Omkring,” Koonce's “Out of Breath,” Sundin's “Utressa” and an untitled work by Chris Mercer.

3:15 to 3:45 p.m. Improvisational performance by the ensemble backGammon.